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Wednesday, September 9, 2015

If I have shared about starting to hand quilt this, I can't find it on my blog. My eyes have evidently changed quite a bit since I last hand quilted anything. I can't thread the needles of my usual betweens needles anymore. It's rather depressing.

I finished piecing this in February 2008. Its time has come to be finished.

Somewhere (of course, with old age comes forgetfulness) I read about "big eye" quilting needles. I could not find them locally.

On my trip to take my kids to camp 90 minutes west of here, I scouted ahead and Googled a quilt shop one mile out of my way. Yay!! And they had the exact needles I was looking for. Double yay!! See second picture for needles. I got the same size I used to use, and they are fabulous.

Here is part of the progress on my Mennonite Mosaic quilt. I am hand-quilting this to use in my bedroom. The one with the yellow walls.

I am marking a diagonal line with a disappearing ink through every color and hand-quilting with the same color thread as the fabric. It's all about the texture.

There was a first for this quilt. I basted it on my Handi-Quilter for hand quilting. I had never thought of doing that before. It sure saved my back. I have always hand-basted them in the past. This worked splendidly.

I have a large stencil for the border, which I think is 12" wide. It's an outlined feather, with corner!!

Monday, September 7, 2015

I don't recall if I posted about this, but back in June, I organized a sewing bee for my friend, Colleen. She was going to Ethiopia to visit her daughter and son, and wanted to take as many pillowcase dresses as she could. We had a wonderful day with our church ladies and finished nearly 50 dresses as a group.

As the sewing time was starting, ladies were filing into our church to help. One of the ladies in our church gave me a Ziploc bag and told me she and her sister had had the bag in their office for a few years and didn't know what to do with it, so they wondered if I wanted it. I glanced at it briefly (it was a very busy day) and was very surprised to recognize some older Thimbleberries prints--ones I had sold, in fact.

After the busyness of the day, I got the baggie out and looked more closely at the fabrics. They were MY units!! In 2007, my daughter and her best friend made matching quilted throws. I cut out one to show them how to piece the blocks and must have laid my pieces aside. Well, here they were! Mysteriously, they had migrated to my friend's home. I don't remember selling them or giving them away, and she doesn't know how they got there.

The 4-patches and star block units were all pieced. Here they are laid out on my design wall. I have since sold the book the pattern was in. If you recognize it, please pass the name on to me. I remember it was in a book with only 6 or 8 patterns. I liked many of them.

Each finished block (3 blocks were completely sewn already) measures 15-1/2" square. I will probably make more blocks to make this a larger quilt. Maybe even a queen-size for my guest bedroom. Time will tell.